Embedded Visas

Date: Thursday, October 30, 2003 6:30 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

I attended the FAIR "board of advisors" meeting in Arlington, Virginia
on 10/18/2003. The following day I gave a speech at the "Writer's
Workshop" which is attended by many of the same people at the FAIR
meeting and by other activists that are interested in immigration
issues.

For a full text version of my speech last year, go to:
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/cgi-bin/showarticle.pl?articleID=1121&terms=

I will notify all of you when a more detailed version of this paper is
published on the SocialContract.

Embedded Visas

Speech to the Writer's Workshop
Arlington, Virginia
10/19/2003

By Rob Sanchez

Free trade agreements (called FTAs) such as NAFTA receive a lot of
public discussion because of the immense effects that they have on our
economy, but very few people understand that these agreements are about
much more than trade and the exporting of jobs. Global trade agreements
come with some extra baggage that we call "embedded visas".

(Please excuse the acronyms because I use a lot of them here)

FTAs contain embedded visas because immigration is used as a bargaining
chip during trade negotiations. Pressure for visas comes from
multi-national corporations seeking to import cheap labor as well as to
gain access to foreign markets, and from pro-immigration groups who
have a variety of agendas.

To further the interests of the movement of labor across national
boundaries, the General Agreement on Trade and Services (or GATS) was
created. GATS contains two major components: the first is trade, which
is defined as the movement of commodities and products across national
boundaries without tariffs, and the second is the movement of people
across borders to provide services. GATS negotiators consider human
capitol as a commodity that shall be moved across national boundaries
wherever employers need it.

In 1995 the GATS agreement borrowed a World Trade Organization (or WTO)
term that describes the process of moving human capitol across
international borders. This process is called the "Movement of Natural
Persons," which refers to the entry and temporary stay of human
laborers for the purpose of providing "services" for employers.[1]
The term "Natural persons" is an Orwellian euphemism used by the WTO to
describe working class people that are considered to be nothing more
than mere commodities. Immigration policies restricting the flow of
"natural persons" would be considered a violation of the WTO rules
because borders must be kept open for the movement of "natural
persons."

To further the movement of "natural persons" an embedded visa was
created called the TN, or "trade NAFTA visa". TN visas allow unlimited
numbers of Canadians to obtain guest-worker visas while Mexico is
restricted to 5,500 visas per year. When NAFTA went into effect it
committed the United States, Canada and Mexico to a process of phasing
out trade barriers completely by January 1, 2009. As part of this
phasing out process, a ten-year time bomb was inserted into NAFTA. The
fuse has been lit on this bomb and it's too late to put it out.
Detonation will occur on January 1, 2004. At that time, all
restrictions on the TN visa will be lifted so that Mexico will have the
right to send unlimited numbers of TN visa holders to the U.S.

Potentially a flood of aliens will be able to come into the US by
claiming they are Mexican citizens who have jobs in the USA. TN visas
aren't very temporary either since they can be renewed in one year
increments forever, or until the alien worker gets a green card. NAFTA
is a guest-worker/amnesty bill that allows visa holders to take jobs
from 67 categories.

Jobs that they can take include the following: Accountant, Architect,
Economist, Engineer, Scientist, Hotel Manager, Computer programmer,
Lawyer, Social Worker, Dentist, Nurse, Pharmacist, and Teacher. [2]

The TN visa program allows family members into the U.S. so the number
of immigrants could be staggering. Obtaining a TN visa is much easier
than an H-1B so don't be surprised if BCIS accepts Matricular Consular
cards to get TN visas. Fraudulent documents could open the door for
non-Mexicans to come across our border and it could be a red-carpet for
aspiring terrorists.

I borrow a term from science fiction called the "wormhole effect" to
describe how visas can be used to accelerate immigration. Wormholes
allow space travelers to traverse the universe by using black holes to
warp space. In a similar fashion aliens will use NAFTA as a wormhole to
traverse the Mexican border.

GATS contains other surprises. H-1B and L-1 visas were inserted into
GATS in 1994. [3] GATS mandates that the minimum number of H-1Bs
issued per year is to be 65,000 no matter how bad unemployment is, and
worse yet, L-1s are unlimited. These visas affect over 150 job
categories - and most of them are for white-collar professionals.

On July 31, 2003, the Senate approved the latest exercise in trade
related immigration policy called the Singapore and Chile Free Trade
agreement, I'm not sure why they didn't use the "S" from Singapore, and
the "Ch" from Chile to form the acronym "SCHAFTA" because that's what
it is [lot's of laughter from audience]. (I'll just delete the "C" to
shorten the acronym to SHAFTA.) A new visa is created for SHAFTA called
the H-1B1. It has a limit of 6,800 visas per year that are counted
against the H-1B visa cap. L-1s from Singapore are unlimited.

SHAFTA is a huge gift given by President Bush to corporatists who seek
to offshore more jobs and import more cheap labor into the U.S.

SHAFTA is another wormhole. NumbersUSA research confirmed that
employees of Singapore companies would not have to be Singapore
citizens to have unlimited access to L-1 visas to the U.S. [4] That
leaves room for fraud by setting up sham countries in Singapore with
tens of thousands of Asian workers who could be sent to the U.S. in
"intra-company" transfers.

Singapore and Chile won't be the last countries to glue onto SHAFTAs
either. Many countries are clammoring to get SHAFTAs. There are new
agreements in the pipeline such as the Central American FTA, or CAFTA.
The Bush administration says that the countries next in line for
agreements include Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Australia, Israel, Jordan,
Pakistan, Morocco and India. Expect expansions of these SHAFTAs to be
signed during the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA) meeting on
November 19-21, 2003 in Miami, Florida.

Embedded visas are very difficult to reverse once they are signed
because they are adjudicated by the WTO - not the United States
government. Our rights to self-determination are sacrificed in the name
of globalization because policy-making authority is granted to the WTO
- a foreign entity. Article 15 of GATS states that in the event of a
disagreement, the WTO will set up a world tribunal to adjudicate the
dispute. [5] The tribunal, NOT THE U.S. CONGRESS, will arbitrate the
dispute. Citizens of the US will have no say in these proceedings.

Recently the Commerce Ministry of India announced that they will go to
the WTO services negotiations, currently underway in Geneva, to argue
that the U.S. must raise the yearly quota on H-1Bs in order to allow
"natural persons" to cross our borders for work.[6] We may get to see
the World Tribunal in action if the United States fails to capitulate
to India's demands.

NAFTA set a precedent that will be followed in future trade agreements.
Countries will ask for immigration treaties at least as good as the TN.
The Bush Administration confirmed this carry-over when he said that he
would use NAFTA and CAFTA as blueprints for future agreements with
other countries.[7]

Congress gave the President the power to make these dangerous FTAs on
July 24, 2003 when they gave George W. Bush Trade Promotion Authority
(TPA) to make NAFTA-like trade agreements with other countries. One of
the pernicious aspects of TPA is that Congress only has the authority
to approve or reject the free trade agreements. Once Congress gives its
approval for the trade agreement, it may not pass laws that restrict or
alter the provisions of the trade agreements - and that of course
included embedded visas.

The AFL-CIO made an effort to convince Congress that embedded visas
should never be inserted into FTAs. The AFL-CIO and the Communications
Workers of American claim that, and I quote: "Sensenbrenner now
believes he has a commitment from the US Trade Representative to never
again include immigration provisions in trade agreements. Many House
and Senate members, particularly GOP conservatives, voiced their
commitment to oppose any future trade agreements should they do so."
[8]

The unions are fooling themselves, because there is nothing
Sensenbrenner or any other member of Congress can do to force embedded
visas out of these agreements except to vote against the entire bill,
and very few of them will oppose free-trade agreements as long as
corporate lobbyists demand them.

The first step in preventing these FTAs from containing embedded visas
is to insist that Congress revoke TPA. Until Congress gets their
Constitutional power back, it's unlikely that they will ever have
control over embedded visas or any other aspects of international trade
agreements. Revoking TPA will force Congress to bear the responsibility
for the subversion of our immigration policies and reduction of our
national sovereignty.

References:

1 GATS: Movement of natural persons, Mode 4 of the services agreement,
July, 1995.
www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/eol/e/wto06/wto6_37.htm#note1

2 NAFTA - Appendix 1603.D.1: Professionals

http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/nafta/chap-162.asp#Ap1603.D.1

3 GATS/SC/90, "The United States of America - Schedule of Specific
Commitments", April 15, 1994
http://docsonline.wto.org/

4 "Senate & open-immigration trade bills, by Roy Beck, NumbersUSA email
newsletter July, 28th, 2003

5 United States Singapore Free Trade Agreement - Section C,
Investor-State Dispute Settlement:
http://www.ustr.gov/new/fta/Singapore/final/text%20final.PDF

6 India seeks higher H-1B quota, by Bipin Chandran and Sidhartha in
New Delhi, Business Standar, October 15, 2003
http://www.business-standard.com/today/story.asp?Menu=19&story=25096

7 Message to the Congress of the United States, George W. Bush, The
White House, July 15, 2003:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030715-8.html

8 DPE NewsLine, August 2003, Trade Agreements
http://www.dpeaflcio.org/news/newsline/newsline_2003_08.htm

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